My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Gallery of prints for sale

Wednesday, 20 December 2017

Charles-François Daubigny’s etching, “Le Cochon dans un Verger”, 1860

Charles-François
Daubigny (aka Charles Daubigny) (1817–1878)

“Le Cochon dans un Verger” (The Pig in an Orchard), 1860

Etching and drypoint on chine collé on laid paper with full
margins and blind-stamped by La Chalcographie du Louvre. Note: Melot (1981)
advises that the Chalcographie edition shows the title as “Le Porc” and so this
impression must be before the authorization of the Chalcographie’s edition.

Condition: richly-inked and well-printed impression with generous margins in excellent condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, stains or foxing).

I am selling this freely drawn etching (with drypoint) for the total cost of AU$196 (currently US$150.5/EUR127.02/GBP112.33 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this exemplary etching of Daubigny's commitment to direct observation of nature, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold

There is a strange mix of meanings projected by this print. On one
hand the line of cursive text etched below the image—"un Cochon de
propriètaire qui ne fera de bien qu' après sa mort"—which I understand
were the words of Daubigny’s friend, the sculptorJean-Louis Chenillion, who was watching
Daubigny at work drawing the pig, raises more questions than are answered by
the composition.

Google translates this text into the following bitter statement in English:
“a Pig owner who will do good only after his death." This slightly
unsettling and very obscure translation is moulded by Michel Melot’s (1981) in
"Graphic Art of the Pre-Impressionists” to mean: “a pig of a landlord of no
use except dead” (p. 280). For me, however, I am left still wondering about the
significance of the portrayed pig and its relationship to its owner. Perhaps
more intriguing is the relationship between the pig, its owner and their
connection to Daubigny that drove him to inscribe these grim words uttered by his friend.

Beyond the curious play of meanings projected by the inscription, the
treatment of the portrayed subject is equally curious. For me, Daubigny has
intentionally camouflaged the portrayed landscape features in the scene with
loosely laid lines so that the whole composition seems literally woven
together. For me, this visual blending of sky, trees, grasses and ground with
the pig and distant sheds expresses a vision of landscape that is more about the
complexity of intuitive sensory responses than a “straight forward” mimetic
description of what he observed.